Universe's End

"So, here is the situation, folks… I'll be leaving soon."

"Leaving? To where?" Flair asked, the most outspoken of the group.

"Well, I won't really be leaving leaving. Zoey and I will be making the climb to face the tier eight at the top of the mountain."

"IS that supposed to take long?" Harrison asked, seeming confused.

"On paper, no," Rory answered. "As these things tend to go, though, we've got a pretty solid guess it won't be as simple as climbing the mountain and dealing with it. Problem some bull shit that takes us to some pocket reality or something."

"If I may… That's a thing?" Gon Rong asked.

"Ahh, right, I often forget that for most of you, you've never even set foot in a trial space or delve that isn't the Maw."

"The Trial of Space is… unforgiving," Kai Rong said.

Fair enough, some of that stuff required a modern understanding of physics that isn't easy to internalize without proper educators that aren't me. Whatever, they still have the general blueprint; they can figure it out on their own.

Putting aside stray thoughts of the Trial of Space, Rory returned to the present.

"Right, so yes, there are spaces that are bigger on the inside-"

"Like what you did for our grove!" Kai Rong suddenly snapped his fingers together as it clicked.

"Yes, something like that," Rory said, not bothering to explain that the way Trials and non-physical delves broke the rules of space was not the same as what he'd done. "Anyway, we may be gone for a few, uhh, years? Not fully certain, hopefully less than ten. While we're gone, Eia is in charge."

There was a brief moment of surprise, as if they'd expected Kai Rong to be put in charge as the strongest amongst them.

Strongest amongst them is still the strongest amongst tier sevens, like I'd be that stupid.

"Stick to the areas I designated as hunting grounds for you all. If you want to try a new, more advanced hunting ground, you've got to ask Eia to chaperone you first. I don't need any of you kids to become food for a grumpy monster. Eia notwithstanding."

Rory waited for a chirp or laugh, but the room was silent, his humor falling short.

Well, I thought it was funny.

"Any questions?"

"What about us crafters?" Reese asked, one of the trio of forgers.

"Your focus also remains the same. Blacksmiths, you will continue to mine and forge weapons and armor of whatever catches your fancy, while working on your mastery over True Folding. +1 Promethium will be immensely valuable to bring back to Ehkorrus. I just can't be the one trying to mass-produce it. Continue to develop your technical skills and be the judges for one another. Inscription Artists, your goal is a little different. I want every piece of equipment they make to have at minimum a triple layer of inscriptions. Outside of that, continue working to deepen your understanding of concepts and ideas from new angles. Lastly, Gon Rong."

"Yes?" Gon Rong asked.

"I believe you've improved enough. I'm going to have you start producing durability brews."

"Really?" His eyes widened as Rory nodded.

"Yeah, the Obsidian-Souled Roses should be something you can handle now. Also, make sure to harvest the Ferrous Berries, our blacksmiths will be adding them into their promethium blends once they've mastered True Folding."

"Yes!" The younger man cheered before coughing into his fist, regaining his composure. "I mean, my gratitude honored Lord Founder."

The Blooming Obsidian-Souled Rose Tonics were an alchemical brew Rory had created decades ago from a tree guarded by Zoey's least favorite monster –outside of the Dactyl Supreme, which had swallowed her whole— a Wyrm Newt. The problem was that its creation involved some highly toxic materials. As a tier seven, they had left Rory feeling worse for wear when he'd fucked up his handling, so a tier six?

Yeah, there had been a specific reason Rory had held off on letting Gon Rong get his hands dirty with the special brew.

To date, it was still one of the most special brews Rory had ever made, as the only brew he'd managed to uncover that could cause a permanent increase in an attribute. Rory had managed a fifteen percent increase in tier seven to his durability attribute. In contrast, Zoey had seen something closer to five percent. Without handy dandy stat numbers to compare to -the most forbidden concept in the universe according to Eon- they'd only managed to figure out the difference through liberal application of 'stabbing ourselves enough times to get data points to compare against.'

Ehkorrus would be salivating at the thought of such a brew for the elites, and Rory was especially curious how Apostolos would take to it, given he didn't have a durability attribute. Still, it was busy work he wasn't willing to waste time on.

Gon Rong's time, however? Not just was he willing to waste his time, but for the Rong clan hopeful, it wouldn't even be a waste of time; such a potent and dangerous brew to make would be quite worthwhile as far as pushing his ascension gains.

"Anything else, any lingering questions, comments, concerns?" Rory looked around the room filled with his people.

When no one said anything, Rory nodded.

"Great. Now, no one bothers me for the next month unless Eia decides to eat one of you."

Once more, the silence was deafening.

Everyone is a critic.

One month of preparations for the oncoming potential journey, Rory got to work. Over the last few years, he had restocked some of his inventory of weapons, but he still wasn't anywhere close to the sheer amount he once had.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

That wasn't what he spent his time resolving, though.

No, two things in particular took his time over the next month. First was the matter of Zoey's new armor. Rory had some suspicions that Zoey hadn't even bothered to encapsulate her armor within the field of her 'protection' when she'd withstood his Oblivion Point attack, for the exact purpose of what he was doing now, making her new armor.

As far as armor went, it was good, excellent even. But it wasn't outstanding, not in the way something like his or Apostolos's armor was. A lot of that was due to materials. His own armor was made from materials far more advanced, such as Aberrant-grade scales. Apostolos, meanwhile, had armor that gained a shit ton of potential from his storied history with his former armor, which went into the crafting of his new armor.

Had Zoey not brainlessly gotten her armor deleted from existence, he might have been able to do something similar, albeit to a somewhat lesser degree.

But Zoey and brainless went together like peanut butter and jelly, at least in Rory's purely objective opinion, so she had to make do with merely excellent armor.

Last time Rory had let the armor naturally adopt an Akashic Record rather than add his own inscriptions. This time, Rory decided to reverse that, carefully inscribing the armor throughout, which seemed to sink into the metal like a coin sinking into the bottom of a swamp. With decades more of experience between his work with the Skill Slate, general advancement of his understanding of concepts, and even a few new runes, the armor was finished within two weeks as he'd discarded sleep during that time.